A better day

Posted on April 16, 2013 by admin

Yesterday was rough. After a weekend of being sick, and the kids being sick, I was completely exhausted, and I didn’t handle it very well. (I’m also feeling kind of uncomfortable about having written about it, but if I’m going for honesty, I guess I’ve at least achieved that!)

Today is better. I slept all night. The boys slept all night. We got up at 6:30, and I was feeling a lot better, even then. B was well enough to go to school today (kind of — after a meltdown at 6:30 and almost falling asleep at the dinner table, I’m not sure he really WAS well enough for school) and Liam and I got to stay in and do nothing today while we work on recovering.

Still, by nap time I felt like it was 10:00 at night. B, who has made the transition away from diapers for his waking hours, wanted to try napping without a diaper today. I was exhausted, and the thought of cleaning all the bed sheets didn’t appeal to me, but I also don’t want to discourage him, so he gave it a try . . . and was completely successful. (Score one for not discouraging him. As a side note, I am really proud of him.)

Today went well. I’m still getting over being sick, as is B. Liam is still sick. I opted for ordering dinner instead of cooking, and we skipped bath time because both kids were so wiped out. But today was peaceful and fun. We had a good day.

Meditations on a bad day as a mom

Posted on April 15, 2013 by admin

The logical part of my brain knows that I’m not the only mom who has bad days. I don’t mean “the kids watched TV all day and the dishes didn’t get done” bad days, but “I fell apart/cried/screamed at my kids today” bad days or “I feel like a failure as a mother” bad days or “how could I have said that to my kids” bad days. It stands to reason that if I, a kind, loving, caring, attentive, semi-organized, thoughtful mother can have days like that, then most likely the other moms I know who are also kind, loving, caring, attentive, semi-organized and thoughtful must have days like that, too. At least, most of them.

Or maybe it’s only a few. Maybe I’m actually the only one. Although my wiser mind tells me that I can’t be, the fearful part of my brain tells me that I might be. I might be the only one. I might be the only one who doesn’t handle the stress gracefully. The only one who gets overwhelmed. The only one who has ever taken out anger and frustration meant for someone else in the direction of one of my kids. The only one who has ever said anything to one of my kids which shocked me and reduced me to tears. Maybe it’s just me.

But in case it’s not, on this day, which was a tough one for me — on a day when I let my irritation that came from dealing with grown up things come out towards my kids, on a day when I cried when I should have been comforting and when I growled when I should have been patient — I’m going to share some of the things that help me on days like these. I didn’t write them down with the intention of sharing them, I wrote them down with the intention of remembering them. I don’t usually remember these things until after — after I’ve gotten angry, or snapped at the kids, or raised my voice, or imposed an unreasonable consequence, or broken down in tears, or issued a threat instead of choice.

I am a good mom.
I am doing the best I can, and so are my kids.
There is nothing more important than being kind.
I have to do WHATEVER IT TAKES to keep a good attitude.
I am almost never actually angry with the kids. I’m probably actually exhausted/stressed/irritated/frustrated/angry at something else entirely.
This (whatever it is) is only going to last for a moment.
Don’t ruin all the good moments with one crappy one.
NOTHING IS MORE IMPORTANT than taking good care of my kids. Not chores. Not exercise. Not Dan. Not my to do list. Not philosophy or discipline. Not keeping my temper or behaving “properly” towards other adults. NOTHING.
Whatever I’m in the middle of, I can take a breath and count to 10. Or eat a piece of chocolate. Or drink a cup of coffee. Whatever “it” is will still be there.
Hugs and kisses help almost any situation.
If I keep calm, there might be space for a learning moment here, but if I fall apart, there probably isn’t.

These are the things that I wish I could remember BEFORE. I never think of them until after, and they don’t help as much then. Today was a rough day. I wasn’t the mom that I am capable of being. Tomorrow I’ll get up and try again. Maybe having written them down will help me next time, or maybe it’ll help another mom who has bad days.

Mommy’s sick day

Posted on April 14, 2013 by admin

Ah . . . I remember “sick days”. I remember waking up in the morning, trying to drag myself through my preparation for the day, telling myself to tough it out and finally giving in to the aches, or the fever, or whatever illness had me in its grip. I remember collapsing onto the couch, covering myself in a blanket, putting brain-numbing mid-day TV on and putting in a request for ginger ale or orange juice with Dan before he left for the day. I remember starting to feel better, getting up to accomplish something and quitting halfway through because I wasn’t as “better” as I thought. At the time, I never liked sick days. I was never one to revel in taking a break. I always felt guilty and unsure about whether I was “really sick enough” to be home (even in the face of overwhelming evidence). And I was always worried about what kind of work would be piled up for me when I got back. I never really enjoyed it.

And I never thought I’d think back fondly on those (to my mind) wasted days spent doing nothing and waiting to feel better.

Having a “sick day” as a mom is totally different. You have your own morning routine to drag yourself through, plus (in my case) at least two others’. It doesn’t matter how miserable I feel, diapers have to be changed, meals have to be made, boo-boos need to be tended to. Last week, B got sick with a bad cold, and yesterday Liam & I woke up sick, too. For me, it didn’t start off too badly, but after a night of almost no sleep on Friday (because Liam was up) and less last night (because I couldn’t breathe or get comfortable) I woke up sick, shivery, feverish and miserable this morning.

I’m lucky, because it’s Sunday. No one had to go to school or work, Dan was home all day. I didn’t have any chores to do or errands to run, no tasks to accomplish. But still, life goes on. Dan made our meals, but I watched the kids while he did. (And “watching the kids” doesn’t mean laying on the couch and staring into space — it means racing cars, reading stories, finding lost Legos, dragging stuff out from under the couch and overseeing endless negotiations about who has how much time left with which toy.) I did manage to lay down for half an hour this morning (in my own room!) but I had to come back out when Liam pinched his finger and couldn’t be consoled by anyone else. I got to lay down for an hour while the kids napped (which was AWESOME) and Dan took the boys out to pick up dinner without me (although I was afraid to lay down because I figured I’d be out for the night if I did).

Yes, I’m being whiny and complaining. It’s been a long day. Fingers crossed that I wake up tomorrow feeling chipper and energetic, because tomorrow is back to the work week and life as usual.

Daylight in the north

Posted on April 12, 2013 by admin

I understand that a lot of people don’t like Daylight Saving Time. Its purpose is rather antiquated, it makes life a bit more complicated, the adjustment period is a pain . . . I even read an article, a few weeks ago, that said heart attacks are more common in the week following the time change. I get it. I, too, have always been of the mindset that we’re going to have a certain number of daylight hours, who cares what time of day they happen?

Living in Vienna, though, I care. I care because my kids are already approaching 6:00 a.m. wake up times, and it’s still April. By June, it’ll be full on daylight here just after 4:30 in the morning. We have blackout curtains in the boys’ room, which help, but the curtains don’t silence the birds or stop little bit of light coming in around the door and window. If not for Daylight Saving Time, my kids would be waking up now just after 5:00 a.m., and the sun would be up just after 3:30 in the morning in June.

Say what you like about Daylight Saving Time, but I’ll take my sunshine at 9:00 p.m. (which I actually find quite lovely) over 4:00 a.m. anytime (well, particularly in June). Living at a more northerly latitude has given me a whole new appreciation for it.

Junior translator

Posted on April 10, 2013 by admin

Shortly after we moved here, we got a well-loved, hand-me-down copy of “Blue Hat, Green Hat”. B loved it. He loved the silly antics of the turkey, and really took to the simple pattern of the story. Soon after we started reading it, he started “reading” along with us, and shortly after that, he started “reading” it on his own.

He got tired of it after a while, but I brought it back out again recently, mostly because I figured Liam was just about the right age for it. Liam loves it as much as B once did. Now B has started spelling and reading the words in the book, and Liam “reads” it to us, too.

Last night, after Liam took a turn “reading” it aloud, B picked it up. Instead of just reading it, he translated the whole thing into German. No kidding.

It might just be the coolest thing I’ve ever seen him do (so far).

Alpine toys!

Posted on April 7, 2013 by admin

A couple of weeks ago, when we were in Salzburg, we stopped by a little town near our hotel for dinner. On the way back to our car, Benjamin and Liam froze, wide-eyed and completely captivated by a window display of a toy store. As a parent of a 4 year old and a 2 year old, this is nothing new. I was preparing to round them up and herd them back down the sidewalk when I took a closer look at the display.

It was an entire window display scene of Playmobil dolls and toys, all very clearly set in the Alps. And it was fantastically cool.

There were mountain cable cars, perfect little Alpine homes and restaurants, mountain climbers, mountain rescue helicopters, hikers (with the type of walking sticks I’ve only ever seen in this part of Europe), cows with wreaths of flowers, and dolls in dirndls and lederhosen. They all looked just so perfectly Austrian. I’d never really seen anything quite like it. I was as enthralled and giggly as the boys, gazing at the display and discovering tiny details.

After getting home and doing some research, I came to find out that Playmobil is a German company (which I didn’t know, because I was familiar with them in the US, and had never seen any toys which particularly gave away their origins) and that they usually release their toys first in this part of Europe (Germany, Austria, Switzerland, etc.). Then some (but not all) types are released in the rest of the world, including in the US. So, although I’m skeptical that these Alpine toys will ever be released in the US, if they ever are, it won’t be until next year at the earliest.

I’m kind of glad that the shop wasn’t open, because I suspect I would have gone in and gone on a little Austrian toy shopping binge that probably wasn’t necessary. I do think, though, that the boys may receive a few of these for their birthdays, or maybe for Christmas, this year. I think they’re fantastically cute, and I think they’ll probably be a great way of helping the kids hold on to some of the memories of their experiences here. (And, at the very least, Mommy wants to play!)

Another year

Posted on April 4, 2013 by admin

I know a lot of our friends have been wondering what’s up with our return to the States. Our original plan had us finishing out Dan’s initial 2 year contract and returning to the US in late April or early May of this year.

Things have changed a little.

Back in the fall, Dan was offered, and accepted, a contract extension. At the time, we weren’t entirely sure *what* we were going to do this spring, but we wanted to keep our options open. Having the option, though, got us thinking.

Although we miss everyone at home terribly, and in some ways, I’m kind of ready to be done living at the level of exertion required to be an expat with small kids, we’re not quite done here yet. There are still things we want to do and see. We want to work more on our German. We want to get to enjoy being settled — we’ve just really felt at home in the past 6 months, and the thought of turning around and packing up, now that we’re finally finding our way here, is disappointing and overwhelming.

Going home is just so . . . final.

Once we leave here, and move back to the US, that’s where we’ll be. The kids will be in school, we’ll be back home with friends and family, and that’s where we intend to build our future. The opportunity here is a brief one, and we want to take advantage of it while we can. I think about it a lot. And the comparison that seems the most apt is that of raising kids.

As a mom, I love what I do. I love being home to raise my boys. I love early morning snuggles, playing in the tent, kissing boo boos, building forts and story time. I love watching my boys learn and grow. But sometimes, I really wish I could put it all on pause for a minute and go be just me, not “me as a mom”. I want to stay out late, or sleep in one morning. I want to go out with my friends without worrying about when I need to be home, or go away with Dan for the weekend, spontaneously. Sometimes I miss those things a lot. But it’s always only for a minute. Then I remember that my boys are only little for a brief moment. These times will pass too quickly and it will never come again. My time for living without responsibility, for self-indulgence and spontaneity has passed — for the moment. I’ll get that chance again one day, too, if I want it. But, for now, this is my season of being a mom, focusing on my kids, being here for them, and putting those other things aside. And I love it. I wouldn’t change it for the world. So, why would I want to rush it?

That’s how I feel about living in Austria. Sometimes — often — I miss being with my family and friends a tremendous amount. I miss getting in the car and running an errand easily, or stopping by to see someone on a whim. I miss being able to read the packages of everything at the drugstore or having an entire potato chip aisle to choose from. I miss drive-thrus. I miss my horses. But then, I remember that this is a brief season in my life, too. Soon, we won’t live here anymore, and I’ll miss it. I’ll miss shopping at the market in my building every day, taking my kids to (free) preschool, and having perspective-altering adventures every other weekend. I had a time to live the American life, and I will again, very soon, but this is not that time. I don’t want to rush though what’s in front of me now just because I miss something I used to have.

So, for now, we’re staying. B will do his kindergarten year here in the fall, and Liam will join him (at the same school) for preschool. In the States, B would have to do full-day kindergarten, which I’m not sure he’s really ready for (I’m not sure I am either) so we would seriously be considering keeping him home another year. And, that would have meant literally keeping him (and Liam) home — the cost of preschool in the US, especially for both boys, would probably have been prohibitively expensive on a single income. They’ll both get the chance to learn German in an immersion environment (a chance they’re unlikely to have again for a while, if ever). They’ll get to go to school together (which otherwise would have to wait several years) and I’ll get the chance to have some time at home, just me, for the first time in almost 5 years.

Our plan is to allow B to complete his kindergarten year here in June of 2014, and then return home next summer in time for him to start 1st grade in the US (or do kindergarten again, depending on how he does this year, and how prepared he is for a completely different type of schooling). It’ll make for a short turn around next summer, since school gets out late here and starts early in the US, but we’ll manage. (Remind me that I said that next July when I’m freaking out.)

None of this is set in stone, but this is our current plan. It’s been a tough decision to make. I’m personally going through one of the most acute periods of homesickness that I’ve experienced since our first Christmas here, and Benjamin has started asking about when we’ll be moving home. For now, though, I think this is the right thing. There will be uncomfortable moments over the next year or so, I’m certain, where I wonder whether we’ve made the right decision (or where I’m sure we’ve made the wrong one). But I want to fully live this experience while we have it. For the moment, that means extending our stay a while longer.

Back to life as usual

Posted on April 2, 2013 by admin

After almost 6 months of having Jo here as our chef/au pair, she went back to the US over the weekend and we’re back to life as usual around here. And although we know that we used to make that work, we’re currently having trouble figuring out exactly how.

We’ve basically forgotten how the juggling act goes. We can’t remember what worked best for us “before” — way back in October, before we had an extra set of hands. Does it make more sense to shower in the morning or the evening? What time do we have to get up such that we all get showered, fed, get Bailey walked, get Dan to work on time and B to school? Which days should I do dinner, and which days should Dan? What can we make in less than an hour? What’s the most efficient, nutritious and enticing thing I can make for lunch, given that I have to make it entirely with help and supervision from Liam? Should I stop to get groceries while I’m out already from taking B to school or will Liam do better if we come home and take a break first? How do I manage to get a cup of coffee in me before 11:45 in the morning (which is what happened today and will not happen again)?

And, of course, the situation is complicated by the fact that the kids have changed since the fall. Liam used to ride happily in the stroller, but now he wants to be done with it, even though I need him not to be. So now, does the stroller help or hinder? Liam used to fall asleep in the stroller when I went to pick up B, where now he tends to sleep late in the mornings. Should I take B to school and have Dan pick him up, or does it work better the other way around?

We’ve thought about it. We’ve talked and strategized. But there’s no way to figure it out, really, except to try something and see if it works. This morning, Liam and I took B to school. We skipped the stroller because the kids requested to go without. I started getting us ready about 20 minutes later than I should have, but all in all, things went remarkably well. The boys were excellently behaved and we got B to school almost on time. In fact, things went perfectly fine until I stopped at the ATM on the way home and realized, a moment too late, that I didn’t have enough hands to manage it. (Luckily, when I had to lurch away from the ATM to keep from strangling Liam by the hood on his jacket when he leapt/flopped onto the ground, no passersby took either my card or my cash.)

We’ll get there. We’ll sort it out. We’ve done it before. But change is always hard, and there’s always an adjustment period. So far, so good. We got B to school, we got him home, and everyone had lunch. We have a plan for dinner (we’ll see how that goes). And tomorrow, we’ll get up, make some adjustments, and try again. One day at a time, we’ll get it figured out. We’ve done it before, so I know that we can.

Dyeing eggs in Austria

Posted on March 29, 2013 by admin

This is, oddly, already our third Easter in Austria, although we haven’t yet been here two years (thanks to the weirdness of the calendar magic that determines the date of Easter). The first year, our Easter celebration was a little improvised and strange, and didn’t involve dyeing eggs at all because we were living in a tiny temporary apartment with no kitchen table and I would have lost my mind if I’d even attempted it. Last year, we had a really nice Easter, and we even colored eggs, but for that we used the dye I had bought in the US before our departure and had intended to use that first Easter but didn’t (which was also down to all of our things being literally on the ocean when Easter passed by — egg dye included).

As a result, this, our third Easter in Austria, was the first one for which I had to figure out how to dye eggs without familiar supplies from home. My initial hope was that there would be a lovely display of Paas dye kits at the grocery store checkout, but no. Easter eggs are a big thing here — the Easter markets sell hundreds (if not thousands) of hollowed out, intricately hand-painted eggs. The grocery stores sell pre-dyed packages of 10 hard-boiled eggs (because eggs here come in tens, rather than dozens). But I hadn’t seen any way to dye them at home. (And food coloring is NOT a thing here, so that wasn’t an option.) When we were in Salzburg last weekend, I saw some relatively familiar-looking boxes of egg-dyeing supplies, but not wanting to carry it all the way home, I opted out . . . only to come up empty everywhere I looked in Vienna.

Thursday morning of this past week, I still hadn’t come up with a plan and I was running out of time. B had painted eggs in school, so that was my fallback strategy, but I imagined that was going to be more frustrating than fun, in general. So Thursday afternoon, I gave up, went to a grocery store and literally started digging through an Easter display, somewhat alarming the grocery restocking guy. But I found what I was looking for! A flat, thin package of 6 envelopes of “egg ink”. The instructions were, of course, entirely in German, but I went for it, anyway. Not knowing how much “ink” I was getting per envelope, I got two packs, and had Dan pick up 20 eggs on Friday.

Of course, this being Austria (where the organic eggs come stamped with their farm of origin, which is fantastically cool) all of my eggs were brown, and I didn’t know how that would impact our plans. I sat down with Google Translate and came up with a rough idea of the directions, including a helpful guide as to which of the dye packets would work on brown eggs.

My next job was to boil the eggs. Which seems simple, but I couldn’t remember if the eggs needed to be prepared any special way, so I asked the Internet, and came up with a fantastic new method for hard-boiling eggs. 17 eggs (which is how many would fit in the two pots I used) and not a single crack! (I had no idea if they were actually successfully hard-boiled, but they were, at least, more cooked than when I started.) In fact, when I went to douse the eggs with cold water at the end, to stop the cooking process, I was surprised, after covering them completely in a cold water bath, to come back moments later to a pot of hot water! The eggs held so much heat that they reheated the water on their own — it took 3 cold water baths to keep them cold.

Then I set up the dye — warm water and white vinegar, plus the dye packet, which really did look like ink spreading through the liquid.

After all of that, we sat down to color our eggs. I had no idea how it would go — whether I’d bought the right thing, whether I’d translated the directions correctly, whether the brown eggs would work, whether the eggs were sufficiently cooked. But, we gave it a whirl, and it was great. The dye was strong and made rich, deep colors on the eggs, very quickly — and no problem that they were brown eggs. Within a minute or two, the eggs were already darker than I’m used to after a LONG time soaking in the dye from home (my family can attest to my propensity for leaving eggs in dye for far too long). So, the only downside to the whole process is that it just didn’t take very long, which made it hard to keep up with the kids’ enthusiasm. (And I think, had we spilled any dye, it would have been a major, and maybe a permanent, mess.) Other than Liam dropping his first egg, pre-dye (which did at least let me know that the eggs had been cooked all the way through), and him squishing one post-dye, we had a very successful time. Our eggs turned out beautifully, and no one even had to be patient, since each eggs was finished before we could get the next one in.

The boys had fun, and it feels very Eastery here now. Our first truly Austrian egg-dyeing experiment was definitely a success, but, as always, also an adventure.

B at school

Posted on March 28, 2013 by admin

Since Jo will fly back to the States this weekend, and tomorrow is a holiday here, today was my last chance to pick B up from school, just me. Starting next week, I’ll have Liam with me again every time I drop B off or pick him up. And although that’s fun in a different way, I was excited to get to enjoy some one-on-one time with B today.

We’re still getting used to the schedule of varying school and work holidays here in Austria — the holidays at the IAEA don’t correspond to the local days off very well. Consequently, B was at school this week, even though about half of his class was off for “Easter holidays”. It’s one of those things where if I’d known it was routine and customary for kids to be home this week, we would have kept him home and done our own “spring break”, but since we didn’t figure it out until about halfway through the week, he went to school. On the plus side, he got to spend a quiet week at school playing lots of games and getting lots of attention, and he seemed to really enjoy it.

So, with only about half his class in attendance, when I went to pick him up today, instead of being greeted by the chaos that is 20 preschoolers at lunch time, I was able to watch B do his thing. And it was great. All of the kids were focusing intently on varying activities, alone or in pairs — playing games, coloring, doing crafts. B was playing quietly, by himself, stringing rubber bands on a peg board. When he saw me in the doorway (on busier days, my arrival is enthusiastically announced by the other children, usually before I even get to see him in his natural state) he told me, “Mommy, I’m busy. I’m just going to finish up.”

And so he did. He finished his projects, brought them to show me (he made a “police sign” and a “no police sign”). Then he collected everything up, put it away neatly, went back, and pushed in his chair. On his way to the door, he stopped to ask his teachers to thank the Easter Bunny for the basket each child received last week and to wish them a happy Easter (all in German).

I was so impressed with the whole scene, I couldn’t help giggling a little. He’s so grown up, so responsible and polite. The last bit, with thanking the Easter Bunny and wishing his teachers a good weekend, even impressed his teachers (although they seemed to completely expect the cleaning up and pushing in of the chair, which is wonderfully fantastic to me). I couldn’t help but grin and give him an extra big hug on our way out.

He’s an awesome little guy. I just think he’s one of the coolest people I know. (I also feel like we’ve really found him a great school.) It was great to get to witness those few moments at the end of his day. He’s a great kid, and I love him so very much.

A Mommy Abroad

Our big adventure, as a family of three.

Category Archives: Kids and Parenting